Analyze
by 5222008
Summary: Quinn has always excelled at analysis. She loves to pose a question, assimilate the details, look at the evidence, and draw an objective conclusion.    This fits in the "Rules"/Signs 'verse.


Quinn has always excelled at analysis. She loves to pose a question, assimilate the details, look at the evidence, and draw an objective conclusion. In later life, this methodical nature would serve her well in law school and would greatly improve her career as a litigator. At age fifteen, however, these skills got put to a much more personal use: it took approximately twelve minutes and thirty-seven seconds for Quinn to figure out that she was a little bit gay.

The evidence was as follows. First, at a cheerleading camp the summer after her freshman year of high school, Quinn spent most of her free time with Cary, a sixteen-year-old cheerleader from Mentor. Second, in addition to spending what little free time they were given swimming and discussing movies and music, Quinn noticed that she spent a lot of time looking at Cary in her swim suit, and imagining what song she would sing to the other girl if given the opportunity to serenade her. Third, when Quinn looked at Cary in her swim suit, she never once compared their bodies, like she did when she saw, for example, a similarly-dressed Santana. Instead, she just appreciated the lean strength of Cary's body and the way her dirty-blonde hair gleamed in the sunlight. Fourth, she had a dream about kissing Cary, and, when she woke up, did not find herself repelled. Instead, she found herself inexplicably aroused. Fifth, Santana made an off-hand comment about Quinn being "totally gay for that Mentor chick," and, rather than denying it, Quinn simply blushed and ducked her head.

At camp, Quinn realized that something in her relationship with Cary was different that her relationship with her other friends. She didn't give it much thought, however, since she was so busy — clearly whoever was running the camp came from the Sue Sylvester school of coaching. When camp was over, two weeks before the start of sophomore year, Quinn had a little more time to breathe. Sure, Coach Sylvester had scheduled daily six-hour practices, but the rest of the time was hers. One evening, Quinn received an email from Cary suggesting that she come to Lima for a weekend sometime. Feeling giddy and slightly unsettled, after reading that email, she decided to figure out the situation once and for all. It took eight minutes for Quinn to write down the facts. It took an additional minute for her to realize that those facts, when considered together, indicated that she, Quinn Fabray, had a crush on her friend Cary. The last three minutes and thirty-seven seconds were dedicated to the realization that having a crush on a girl made her at least a little bit gay.

Quinn was methodical — she didn't stop there. Instead, she next considered whether she was completely gay or just kind-of gay. She researched the Kinsey scale, and spent an hour watching both straight and lesbian porn, before deciding that they were both pretty gross and were not a good assessment tool. She decided that, since she was still attracted to Finn, her boyfriend, and the idea of kissing him was equally appealing as the idea of kissing Cary, she was probably just bisexual. By the end of high school, of course, she would realize that she was gayer-than-a-unicorn gay. At fifteen, though, Quinn was content with her conclusions, and did not think they required more thought. She was attracted to both boys and girls, and the matter was settled.

This is not to say that Quinn _accepted_ her conclusion as readily as she formed it. Over the next several weeks, she considered several potential problems. The first was reconciling her father's faith with her newfound identity. Her own faith was not a problem, since, even at fifteen, Quinn believed in a benevolent but distant God. She didn't think he'd really care whether she loved men, women, or goats, so long as she wasn't hurting anyone (or any goats). After careful consideration, she decided that there was no real reason for her father to know, at least not at the moment. After all, she rationalized, she wouldn't tell her father that she liked boys, so there was no real reason to reveal that she liked boys _and_ girls. The second was Finn. She loved him, as much as a high school girl can love a high school boy. She knew she had to tell him, more because he was her best friend than because she thought it was really any of his business. When she did tell him, over the phone the night before the third day of school, he was incredibly supportive, as she expected he would be. Once she assured him that she was not cheating on him and was not planning to leave him for a girl, he simply expressed how cool it was that now he could "check out cute girls" with his "cute girlfriend." She was comforted by how well he took it, although she did, once again, question his intelligence. The third was Celibacy Club. Solving that problem proved to be surprisingly easy: she wasn't ready to have sex with Finn, or Cary, or anyone else. She firmly believed that she should wait to have sex. All the religious trappings were really just a nod to her parents. Remaining president, therefore, didn't seem hypocritical at all — she firmly believed in the importance of celibacy, and with whom she was refraining from sex didn't matter.

By the fourth day of sophomore year, then, Quinn was set. She had carefully considered all aspects of her situation, and found ways to happily (or, at least, reasonably happily) live with her conclusions.

Rachel and Puck were, of course, variables for which she had not previously accounted.

Rachel was inconvenient, to say the least. She was attracted to the girl, physically, but found what little she knew of the shorter girl's personality to be repellent. The fact that Finn was attracted to her too made it incalculably worse. Finn might have been her best friend, but she doubted that their friendship (or either of their popularities) could survive a breakup. The relationship was too important to her to just let go because the hot midget was getting in the way.

If Rachel was a mosquito, Puck was a train wreck. She still doesn't know how she let herself get drunk enough to sleep with him, and she regrets it every day for the next nine months. It had nothing to do with her sexuality, with denial, with Finn, or with Cary — who has, in the period between camp and sleeping with Puck, gone from good friend to crush to heartbreaker, when Quinn confessed her feelings and Cary told her that she was flattered, but straight, and maybe they shouldn't spend so much talking to each other, anyway. The only things that could explain her mistake are her attraction towards Puck, which she had always had, and her attraction towards wine coolers, which was a recent development. Quinn is pro-life; she always has been. She firmly believes in the idea that it's a woman's right to choose, she just thinks that choosing to abort is the wrong choice. She does the best she can. Sure, it turns out that the lies just hurt people and she made some really stupid mistakes (Sunglasses? What was she thinking?) but she was fifteen. What fifteen-year-old doesn't make mistakes? Frankly, she thinks to herself one night, trying to sleep on a cot in Puck's basement, she's done a much better job than many girls her age could have done.

Quinn considered herself to be a highly moral person, even if sometimes her morals seemed contradictory, and her behavior didn't always reflect them. She believed that taking care of the baby inside her was of utmost importance, for example, and that's why she agreed to move in with Mercedes, regardless of the fact that their friendship was, at best, awkward and tenuous. That's also why she lied to Finn and Puck about the identity of the baby's father. She was trying to take care of her daughter, and even if she didn't do it very well and wound up hurting people, she couldn't let herself feel too bad about it.

She did feel bad about Rachel. _Really_ bad. She didn't, the first part of sophomore year, but, starting that day when Rachel had offered friendship and she turned it down, she had started to feel twinges of guilt. She just felt so alone, especially after Regionals and Beth. She was living with her mom again, and working to repair that relationship, but she felt the loss of her friends — Cary, Finn, Puck, Santana — deeply. She had no one to talk to about how it felt to give away her daughter (it hurt, but she was proud of herself for being strong enough to go through with it), or to live in her childhood home without her father (she was glad he was gone, but the house seemed too big for just her and her mom, and she knew her mom desperately missed him), or even to be a bisexual who'd never kissed a girl (it was weird, but didn't make her doubt herself or her conclusions, and she definitely wasn't in a hurry).

When junior year started, Quinn reached out to Rachel and the two began a tentative friendship. At first, Quinn really only did it to make amends. She felt bad about how she had treated the brunette the previous year, and wanted to improve her behavior. She didn't _like_ Rachel, she didn't want to be bosom buddies or, really, anything more involved that cordial acquaintances. Sure, she was still attracted to Rachel, but she was also attracted to approximately half the Cheerios and a quarter of the rest of the student body (counting the boys). The attraction didn't matter. What mattered, at first, was Quinn's own morality — her commitment to correcting her past mistakes. As time went on, however, she found that she really actually _did _like Rachel. The aspects of the other girl's personality which she used to find so obnoxious — her dedication, her almost-obsessive devotion to those she counts as friends, how sensitive she was to the criticism of her peers — are now endearing. What matters as the relationship progresses, as they truly become friends, is how well they get along. Their personalities complement each other extremely well, and they find that even mundane tasks like math homework are made more enjoyable when undertaken together.

Quinn performs another analysis, several months into the friendship. She concludes that her friendship with Rachel, although not exactly socially beneficial, is worth it. They enjoy spending time with each other, they can turn to each other with problems and receive well-reasoned and helpful advice, and they can trust each other with secrets large and small. Rachel is the one Quinn calls the night that Cary shows up on her doorstop, kisses her, and flees back to Mentor without another word. Quinn is the first one to know that Rachel didn't sleep with Jesse, or Finn, or Puck. Quinn doesn't think to ask why the events with Cary don't send her spiraling into another crippling depression, or why finding out that Rachel is a virgin makes her feel somehow lighter inside.

Quinn begins to learn Rachel's quirks: the fact that she has "outdoor clothes" and "home clothes" and the first thing she does every day when she gets home from school is change into home clothes, and the fact that she _hates_ when people put their feet on her bed. Quinn realizes how close she and Rachel have become when, doing homework on Rachel's bed one afternoon, Rachel says "You can put your feet up, if you want," but she doesn't realize it might mean anything more until months later.

After their first kiss, pressed against a storage container (_not_, as Quinn insists on repeating whenever Rachel tells the story, a dumpster), it takes Quinn a little less than two minutes (she blames the delay on the alcohol) to decide that she would not be opposed to doing that again. She instantly weighs the pros (Umm, everything.) against the cons (Nothing, as far as she can tell; Rachel is far too liberal to let one kiss get in the way of their friendship.) and the conclusion is clear.

It takes Quinn approximately four hours to work out the baseball metaphor, once she and Rachel start drunkenly sleeping together. Twenty minutes after the first time, she's already decided she wants to do it again, since she has performed an analysis similar to the one that followed their first kiss. She questions whether she can leave emotions out of the change in relationship, but once she decides that she can, the only thing left to do is come up with a way to sell the plan to Rachel. Quinn doesn't know much about baseball — her dad had taken her to a few Indians games when she was younger, but she doesn't remember much. She winds up doing two-and-a-half hours of research, mostly on the designated hitter rule and on an episode of Seinfeld she thinks might be useful, but proves not to be. The rest of her time is spent writing and memorizing a script for the presentation. Rachel may be the only one who uses Powerpoint, but she's not the only one who believes in being prepared.

The decision to propose requires no analysis whatsoever. One day, Quinn just wakes up and knows that she wants to spend the rest of her life with the woman sleeping next to each other.

"Hey, Rachel," she says, shaking her girlfriend's shoulder.

"Hu-hmm?" Rachel mumbles sleepily.

"Will you marry me?"

Rachel bolts upright, hair a mess and eyes refusing to open.

"Quinn Fabray," she says, loudly. "Did you just wake me up to propose, with no ring, no bended knee, and no string quartet to accompany you as you serenade me?"

Quinn starts to think this was a bad idea. "Umm, yes?" She fidgets with the blanket and lowers her gaze.

Rachel reaches out and tilts her head up. "Of _course_ I'll marry you, Quinn," she said, leaning in to kiss the now-beaming blonde.

Yes, Quinn has always excelled at assimilating details, looking at the evidence, and drawing objective conclusions. Sometimes, however, none of that is necessary.


End file.
